All My Years of Sight
by esplanade
Summary: Post-Great Game AU in which they blow up the pool and John is hospitalized, severely injured and blinded. First fic I wrote, despite not putting it on here till now. I have written and rewritten and will never be satisfied with it. I forbade myself from going over it again for the hundredth time. So here it is. *headdesk*


John was awake, but he couldn't make himself move or open his eyes. In a drugged haze, he tried to remember.

Sniper rifles. Semtex. A silent nod to Sherlock. Shooting the explosives. Nothing.

The explosion. He must have survived it. Had Moriarty? More importantly, had Sherlock?

John took in his surroundings without opening his eyes. Cool sheets, needles in his arms and hands, a beeping machine nearby, gauze and bandages covering much of his skin. Hospital. John thought for a moment how odd the sensation was, being the patient instead of the doctor. He could hear the nurses and staff in the hall, rolling the vital signs machines and chatting about their days as they made rounds.

When he finally tried to force his eyes open, he found that he couldn't, and was instantly struck with panic. He heard his pulse rise on the monitor and he tried to force himself to calm down. Why couldn't he open his eyes? Suddenly, the blackness that had at first been so soothing was now a gaping abyss, and he was trapped in it.

Suddenly a hand was on his shoulder. "John, stop. You don't panic when you get blown up, and you're going to panic over waking up in a hospital bed? Not rational." The hand disappeared.

Sherlock had made it, apparently, and the trauma had done nothing to affect his lack of tact.

"Why can't I see?"

"Because your bandages are applied in such a way that your eyes are covered. Obviously." John took a deep breath and made himself locate where his skin was covered. He felt the packed gauze across both eyes and all of his forehead, and a series of bandages running diagonally, covering the left side of his face. The right side was largely untouched, having been facing away from the explosion. There were more bandages up and down the entire left side of his body. He tried to keep his composure. He didn't like not seeing. His life had enough uncertainty to it without factoring in blindness. He wondered how people who were truly blind stood it, having to rely on your other senses and other people when both were so notoriously unreliable.

"Anything broken?"

"No. A great many serious lacerations, some burns. On an internal bleeding watch for the blunt trauma. Dull."

"And you? All right?"

"All right. Minor injuries. They admitted you and put my arm in a sling. It made it very difficult to text, though. I had to get rid of the cumbersome thing."

"Do what they tell you to, Sherlock," John said reproachfully. Even half awake and beaten to a pulp, he still felt the need to chide his friend. It added normalcy to an abnormal situation. "How long have I been here?"

"A few days."

"How long have _you_ been here?" Silence. "When can I get these bloody bandages off?"

"I'd have to ask your doctors. You had a great deal of damage across your face, none of it permanent they assure me, but certainly needing more attention to heal."

"What happened to -"

"Moriarty? Vanished."

"After all this, he got away." John huffed out a sigh.

"It would seem so. They didn't find him. He must have had assistance aside from his snipers."

"Great. Just great." John couldn't help but feel a little annoyed that he was lying in a hospital bed for nothing. "How much longer will I be stuck in here?"

"Ask the doctors." Sherlock was beginning to sound distracted. There was always a slight pause in his words when that happened. John had never noticed it consciously, but now that the voice was all he had to go on, it seemed glaringly obvious. Sure enough, a few seconds later, he heard the faint clicking of Sherlock texting.

"Who's that?"

"Lestrade. It's always Lestrade. I interrupted another of his ridiculous press conferences again with my texts, so he says. I can't help it that they got it wrong." John smiled.

Now that John was awake, he began to feel the ache that permeated his body. Although ache was perhaps too kind a word for it. It was pain, pain made more intense by the stinging of the burns. He suppressed a groan, not very successfully.

He heard a different sort of clicking nearer to him, right next to his bed. Patient controlled pain medicine pump. What were they giving him? Morphine? Dilaudid? He didn't care.

"Should take effect soon." Sherlock hadn't moved from beside the IV pump.

"Hope so," John said drowsily, after some delay.

"I swear, John. You should never be on pain medication. You've a normal person's mind, slow enough as it is, and drugs seem to slow it down to a downright glacial pace."

"I'm glad you're okay, too, Sherlock." He heard a scoffed laugh nearby, and then it was silence as he fell back to sleep.

* * *

Sherlock resumed his seat across the room as John went unconscious. He turned his attentions back to the vast array of papers and files laid out around him. He had commandeered the bedside table for his own use. He was working on his laptop when Lestrade texted him again.

_Sherlock, don't give me that attitude. If we're all so wrong, then get down here and help us._

_Can't. SH_

_You can't! You interrupt the press conference, make us look like idiots, and now you won't help?_

_You know I don't leave the flat for anything less than a seven. SH_

_You're not at 221B, I've already been by!_

_I'm well aware of my own location, Lestrade. SH_

_So you have a better case? Something more than a seven?_

_I'd say it's a solid eight or nine, at least. SH_

_And if it's not one of ours, whose case are you working on?_

_Go arrest the sister, Lestrade. It really was terribly obvious. SH_

Sherlock could practically see Lestrade throw his hands up in the air in exasperation. He smiled.

* * *

John woke up and reminded himself of his situation so he wouldn't panic again. But in the back of his mind, he was worried that the bandages would never come off, or if they did, he'd be blind. He'd had strange drugged dreams to that effect. But Sherlock had said he'd be fine, and Sherlock wasn't one to protect people. If John was going to be dead tomorrow, Sherlock would tell him, not out of respect, but because it was fact. John was grateful he was okay, all the same. He could be so cold and callous and impossible, but he was Sherlock. John let out a heavy sigh. The hospital room was quiet. He wondered what time it was, how long it had been since he'd dropped off.

"Twelve hours."

John jumped, and immediately regretted doing so when he felt the pain that came with moving. "What?"

"It's been twelve hours."

"You're still here?"

"Clearly." John heard the voice coming from the corner of the room, still sounding slightly distracted. Sherlock had stayed? John had been sure his being there the first time was a fluke. He'd never imagined he'd be here now. "I've temporarily relocated. Blessedly, the hospital has wifi."

"Why not work out of Baker Street?"

"Well, you aren't at Baker Street. My skull does not quite suffice. I needed to talk aloud, and I always talk to you. Since you are here, so am I. Simple."

"I've been unconscious for twelve hours."

"I didn't say I needed you to listen."

"So you have a case?"

"I'm solving cold cases. Had to find something to fill the time, didn't I? None of them are very difficult. I've already tied up three so far."

"Since I was admitted?"

"In the last shift."

"Have you slept any? Eaten anything?"

"Busy."

"How did you ever survive before you had me around?" John wasn't entirely kidding. Sherlock was awful about taking care of himself. He believed his body was transport, which may have been true, but even cars needed oil changes. He laughed a little to himself, tried to cross his arms across his chest, making it halfway before the muscles and bones protested. John was waiting for a sarcastic retort. _Somehow I managed_, or something to that effect.

It was quiet for a while before the voice across the room said, "I honestly have no idea."

Had he not been relying on his hearing, he might not have caught it. If he'd been distracted by facial expressions and body language, the remark could have come off sounding flat. But there was a sad edge to the sentence. It was almost uncharacteristic. Sherlock was never sincere when he said things like that. It was always part of the punchline. But John thought back to the pool. He remembered the look on Sherlock's face when, for a split second, he thought John was the culprit. He remembered how quick he was to give away missile plans on the off chance that it would help him. He remembered how the first thing Sherlock had done after Moriarty left was to tear the explosives off of him. And he remembered how, before blowing the entire building up, he'd looked to him for confirmation that it was okay. Maybe his remark was serious, as much as the detective would despise admitting it.

John wasn't sure how to respond. He badly wanted to see Sherlock's face, to try and find any hint of sincerity to confirm his tone of voice. But he knew better. Sherlock would never betray himself by his face. So John returned to a subject he knew Sherlock would be comfortable talking about. "So, what? You've just been hypothesizing about the cases out loud to me?"

"Yes."

"Doesn't that make the nurses a tad disturbed?"

"Does that matter?"

More to himself than to Sherlock, John said, "I guess that probably has something to do with why I had some dreams about serial killings."

"No doubt."

"Have my doctors been by?"

"Yes. You should be discharged within the week. They want to keep an eye on the burns, but they're convinced you'll do just as well at home with the proper medication."

"I'm sick of not being able to see."

"You're not missing anything, John. Hospital floors are such uninspiring places."

"Have you spoken to Lestrade?"

"Enough."

"Did you tell him about Moriarty?"

"Not yet."

"Why not?"

Silence. John couldn't imagine what would keep Sherlock quiet about what had happened. If the news hadn't somehow made its way to Lestrade, then Sherlock was deliberately keeping him in the dark, no doubt with help from Mycroft. But why?

"Get some rest, John."

John shifted into a more comfortable position. He supposed he should be used to Sherlock's evasive streak by now. John couldn't very well call him out on it, when he could be so evasive himself. He had to admit how happy he was that Sherlock was here, and that in itself made him uneasy. He wasn't going to deny that his opinion of his flatmate was complicated. But he'd spent most of his days since meeting Sherlock avoiding confronting it. It wasn't an idea worth entertaining, he told himself. And this certainly wasn't the time to think it over.

He lay awake for only a few minutes before falling back to sleep.

* * *

Sherlock was grateful when he saw the slow even breathing that told him John was asleep again. He sighed in relief. It was getting harder to remain detached in all this. He was glad John couldn't see his face. He couldn't guarantee that his eyes wouldn't betray him. He was supposed to be a sociopath, not someone who practically moved into a hospital room to keep someone from having to wake up alone.

The reprieve wasn't as long this time. John had reached that stage where he was never asleep long, but in and out. It was the middle of the night. Sherlock knew he was awake long before he finally spoke.

"Sherlock..."

It was typical John. He was never capable of finishing sentences when he tried to say things he was unsure how to say. Sherlock made some noise at his makeshift desk to let John know he was still there without having to actually answer him. After all, no question, no answer.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Hmm?" He tried to sound disinterested.

John listened to the mumbling from across the room. John wondered if he was slipping into one of his sullen moods, the relative mental inactivity finally getting to him. John knew that cold cases would only keep him occupied for so long. And he realized he wasn't really sure what to ask Sherlock, at least, not anything he would answer. _Why are you still here, really?_ Which was why finally, John just said, "Never mind."

Suddenly John felt like there was a palpable tension hovering in the air in the space between him and the corner. After too long a pause, Sherlock said, "Well at the very least, you will have a very interesting story to tell on your blog."

John laughed a little. They were quiet for a while. "Sherlock...tell me something. Is there honestly a chance that once these bandages come off that I still won't be able to see?"

"There's always a chance of everything, John."

"Sherlock."

"Minimal, so say the doctors. Obviously, they haven't had many opportunities to examine your vision due to the cuts and burns. But they tell me the chance that your sight will be affected is slim."

"But still there."

"What would you do if you could never see again, John? Worrying won't change it."

"I don't know what I'd do, Sherlock!" John sounded more angry than he was. He was just tired and worried. He couldn't expect Sherlock Holmes to understand something like this brand of concern. "And, no, worrying won't change it, but neither will pretending everything is fine."

"You will be fine, John. Whether you can see or not."

"How do you figure that?"

"You have an extra set of eyes, if you need them. I don't think you will. I think the doctors are right, but if it came to that, you'd manage."

"A second set of eyes. How long has it been since you last slept, Sherlock?"

"This is why I don't speak figuratively. No one ever seems to pick up on it," he said, voice trailing off toward the end of the sentence. John tried to work through his brain fog. Of course. Sherlock meant his own. Moriarty had said that he'd burn out Sherlock's heart, and had implied that that meant John. And now Sherlock was his eyes, until further notice. Were they really so close that their very bodies were interchangeable?

Sherlock heard voices in the hallway, and he recognized one of them instantly. "I'll be back, John." He left without further preamble, and barely beat Lestrade to the door. Sherlock shut the door behind him quickly, keeping them both out in the hall.

"What do you want, Lestrade?"

The DI put his hands on his hips and stared at Sherlock in complete frustration. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Mycroft told you, didn't he? Why are you here?"

"Sherlock, John almost got killed. Why do you think I'm here? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because it's none of your business, Lestrade. Besides, don't you have a murder to solve?" The DI glared at the detective. "Your presence here is not required."

"And yours is?" Sherlock said nothing, but gave Lestrade his best haughty, condescending look. The detective opened the door and slipped inside, shutting the door behind him, barring the DI from entering. He stood by the door and waited until he heard the footsteps retreating.

"So who was that, then?" John had heard the not so pleasant tone of voice Sherlock had used with the visitor.

"A minor irritation."

"Must have been Lestrade."

"And how did you determine that?"

"If it were Mycroft, you wouldn't have said minor. if it were Donovan or Anderson, you would have let me hear you taunt them. If it were Molly, you would have ignored her entirely. And if it were Mrs. Hudson, you would have let her in."

Another pause. "Excellent, John. You may be generally oblivious, but now and then you surprise me."

"Nothing surprises you."

When Sherlock finally spoke, his voice was just the slightest bit softer than usual. Another comment that normally would have sounded sarcastic sounded genuine. "Well, I wouldn't say that."

* * *

The next night, when John woke up, Sherlock was still in his place in the corner. John heard the occasional pizzicato note twang through the room.

"Managed to get the violin in here, did you?"

Sherlock grumbled in response. He had been thinking. The violin had been a necessity since his line of thought wasn't one he could share with John. Even if he could only pluck at the strings with his fingers to keep from waking John up, it was better than nothing. His patience for the cold cases had all but vanished. He picked up his bow from the table and started dragging it over the strings now that there was no chance of disturbing John. He didn't especially care if he disturbed anyone else. He played a few bars of music.

"That's nice. What is it? Bach? Beethoven?"

"Holmes."

"Oh, you're composing again." He paused and listened to the melody. "It's pretty."

Sherlock scoffed at the adjective, but he smiled to himself since John couldn't see him do it. "It's structurally sound." He'd been playing the piece in his head for hours, and was pleased to hear that it sounded precisely as he had intended it to.

John laughed. He guessed words like "pretty" weren't really part of Sherlock's vocabulary. "You know, Sherlock, you don't have to hang around here."

"I am aware."

"Well...it's just, I guess I don't understand why you're here, then. You usually don't do anything unless you have to. Isn't this irrational to you?"

The music stopped, rather abruptly. "Use your brain, John. As always, you see but you do not observe." Sherlock realized instantly what he had said, and shut his eyes briefly, mad at himself.

"I don't even do that right now, Sherlock."

"I meant -" John held up a hand to stop him.

"I know what you meant."

He heard Sherlock sigh. "Just think on it, John."

"On what, exactly?"

"If you think about anything long enough with enough common sense, you will eventually arrive at the correct solution." John was about to question his cryptic response, but was decidedly cut off by the music from the violin. So John gave up and settled in. The music was beautiful, really. Cheerier than what Sherlock usually played. His typical music choices tended toward the dramatic and dark. But this was almost sweet in its simplicity and calm. Simple, grounded, comforting, unpretentious. Not like Sherlock at all.

It was, however, exactly like John.

The idea seemed ridiculous to him as soon as he'd thought it. Sherlock doesn't write music about people. John was allowing himself to be deluded again. He beat down the thoughts. Sherlock Holmes could be called many things, but sentimental was not one of them.

It was later in the night when Sherlock finally stopped playing. John seized the opportunity.

"What was going through your head when you were composing that?" John usually didn't pay attention to Sherlock's moody compositions, but in the absence of anything else to do with his time, he'd really listened to this one, trying to hear it as someone like Sherlock might, hearing the structure. But while it was indeed structurally sound as Sherlock had said, it had too much emotion behind it to be merely constructed. And it was much longer than usual.

"What do you think?" It was the tone Sherlock used whenever he challenged John to make a deduction.

John didn't want to say what he was thinking (hoping). "I don't know."

"Reason your way through it. Your mind needs the exercise." Sherlock sat his violin down and started scribbling down the music from memory onto some blank sheets. He would neaten it up later. He was hoping John would come to his own conclusions. Sherlock didn't want to have to tell him out loud. Such emotional confrontations were not his strong suit. Any time he opened his mouth, he usually just made things worse. "Think about the tone."

John's ears perked up. The tone of the music was all he'd been able to think about. "Well, it's structured in four parts. I could hear the differences."

"And?"

"The first part was simple and calm, soothing almost. The second was faster, more pressing, scared. The third was melancholy, and then the last one was happy again, like the first."

"Yes."

"What am I supposed to get from that, Sherlock?"

"What story does it tell?"

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do." Sherlock's voice was little more than a whisper. He didn't want to spell it out. But it was beginning to seem that that was his only option. Either John was terribly naive or was just trying to drag an answer out of him. Both were equally possible. He was quiet for a long time. "You know, I was worried."

"About what?"

"When I came to after the explosion, I didn't think about where Moriarty might be. He didn't even register." John heard the inflection and finished the thought for Sherlock.

"What, you looked for me?"

"Of course."

"Well, if it's any consolation, when I woke up, I wanted to know if you were alive more than anything."

Sherlock looked up from the floor tiles, almost confused. He wasn't used to people worrying about what happened to him. People usually assumed that since he kept to himself so much that he needed nothing from anyone. More than once, he'd been convinced that he was only a brain to the Met, a hired hand for Mycroft. Not really a person. Being worried about, not for the sake of his skill, but for the sake of himself, was an earth-shattering notion.

"I'm glad you're alive, John."

"The music is about me, isn't it?" John had let the words slip out before he could stop them. He had grown steadily more convinced that this was the case, and he decided if it wasn't that he could blame the enormous amount of drugs in his system. He waited for a response, and when it came, the voice was much closer, standing by his bedside.

"Excellent deduction. Although technically, your preposition is somewhat incorrect."

"My preposition?"

"You said _about_. It really should be _for_. That would be more accurate."

"And you call yourself a sociopath."

"Can't be good at everything, can I?" Sherlock stood there, staring down at John. He watched some color creep into his face, a smile begin to play across his lips.

John felt fingers interlacing with his, and he couldn't help but think that he had seen more in his few days of blindness than in all his years of sight.

* * *

When John woke up the next time, he was acutely aware of deep breathing near him. He stretched his hand out and came into contact with an arm and a head of curls lying on top of it. Sherlock had fallen asleep in one of the hospital room's chairs, head resting on his arms on the edge of John's bed.

Sherlock sleeping was always a fascinating thing to John. He couldn't imagine how a brain like his ever slowed down enough to sleep.

"John?" Sherlock was still mostly asleep.

"Yes?"

"All right?"

"I'm fine."

"No, I mean, _all right_?" John heard the edge in the evasive question and smiled.

"Yeah, Sherlock. More than all right. Fantastic."

"You know you do that out loud?" the detective mumbled.

John laughed lightly to himself and let himself drift back to sleep, arm wrapped around the detective's shoulders.

* * *

Early the next morning, Sherlock was sitting in a chair he'd pulled up next to John's bed. He didn't feel the need to keep himself secluded in the far corner of the room anymore. He'd moved his makeshift office, and found its new location to be preferable to the old one.

"I've been thinking," John said.

"Dangerous."

"Very funny. I've been thinking about what you always say, how people see without observing? I think people hear without listening as well."

Sherlock considered this for a moment. "Your premise is sound. Do you believe, then, that people talk without speaking?"

"Of course. That's what we've been doing, isn't it?"

Pause. John felt slightly smug that he was able to leave Sherlock unsure what to say. "Yes, I suppose you're right."

"I wonder how much else that applies to?" John was talking more to himself, in a sort of stream of consciousness. "We see but don't observe. We hear but don't listen. We talk but don't speak. And you don't even realize that's the case until you finally really observe or listen or speak."

"You're beginning to wander into the realm of philosophy, John."

"It's true, though. We even act without thinking. We touch without feeling."

"You think?"

"Of course. Don't you?"

"Inadequate data." John furrowed his brow as much as was possible through the bandages, a little confused. And then he felt a hand on the unharmed side of his face. "Touch or feeling?"

John's breath caught in his throat. "Acting without thinking?"

"I never act without thinking." John knew that was true, but he was still surprised when he felt a pair of lips against his own. John mentally cursed the heart monitor. There was no way to hide the increase in his pulse.

There was a long silence, Sherlock still close enough that John could feel his breath on his cheek.

"Feeling. Definitely feeling."

* * *

At the end of the week, John was sitting up, wide awake from nervousness. Sherlock had begrudgingly let a doctor come in to take off the bandages and check John's eyes. John could hear his footsteps, pacing laps around the room. He would drive the poor doctor insane at this rate.

"Sherlock, would you stay still, please?" John started at the doctor's voice. It was a woman.

"Molly?"

"Hi, John. Sherlock wouldn't let anyone else in. I know I'm technically a pathologist, but I should suffice. He wouldn't even acknowledge any of the other doctors."

John smiled a little. He heard Sherlock's footsteps stop in an annoyed huff for a minute before resuming, ignoring Molly's request at stillness. Whether Sherlock would admit it or not, he was just as concerned as John was. Concern would be the only thing that would make him show his trust in Molly Hooper.

John felt Molly undoing some of the tape around the edges of the gauze. Some of the bandages across his forehead were held in place by her fingers. But at last, Molly was able to tease away the gauze over his eyes. John opened them, squinting in the harsh fluorescent light from the panels in the ceiling. For a good few seconds, everything was so blurry that John thought back to med school when they studied cataracts, and he hoped his vision wouldn't be trapped like this forever. But the longer he kept his eyes open, the more his vision cleared. Molly grinned at him as he breathed a sigh of relief. Sherlock was standing at the foot of the bed, stopped mid-pace, not seeming to know what to do with his hands. John was able to catch the look of pure worry on his face before he covered it. Molly pulled out her penlight to check his pupils and did some quick tests to see if there had been any damage from the explosion. Sherlock continued to pace sulkily while she did.

After a few minutes, Molly smiled and said, "We'll do a better check later, of course, but it seems to me everything's in working order. Any visual disturbances?"

"None at all." John had never been more relieved in his life. He had been in pain all morning, aching from the cuts and burns, but in light of this, the rest of it didn't seem to matter.

Molly signed off on some paperwork before leaving, and as soon as she was out the door, Sherlock was standing in his usual spot by the head of John's bed, looking down at him, hands shoved in his pockets. He couldn't seem to look at John for long. His eyes were darting nervously around the room, never settling on any one place.

"I told you not to worry," he said finally. "Can see fine, then?"

"I think it's safe to say I can see better now than I ever could."

A slight twitch of the corner of Sherlock mouth as he picked up on the figurative speech. "You won't be needing your second set of eyes, then, of course."

"No. But you can't keep living without your heart, can you?"

Sherlock's smile widened, and in the soft voice John had become so accustomed to during the last week, he said, "I wouldn't even want to try."


End file.
